This invention relates to sampling apparatus adapted to be immersed in a fluid for extracting therefrom a sample of a potentially or actually hazardous nature.
There are many occasions when the contents of tanks, drums, and other containers must be subjected to a sampling process to determine the nature of the contents. In many instances the containerized material is known to be of a hazardous nature necessitating the use of special procedures and protective clothing for the sampling personnel, and the manufacture of the sampling apparatus from materials which are essentially inert and relatively unbreakable. These considerations are equally important in those instances in which the nature of the contents of a container is unknown.
The problems associated with the sampling of actually or possibly hazardous materials have been recognized heretofore. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency caused a report (EPA-600 2-80-018) entitled Samplers And Sampling Procedures For Hazardous Waste Streams to be published in January, 1980. This report discusses the problems involved in the sampling of hazardous materials and traces the development of coliwasas, an acronym for composite liquid waste samplers. Although the coliwasas described in the report have advantages over samplers predating such coliwasas, the coliwasas known heretofore still have disadvantages which apparatus constructed in accordance with the invention disclosed herein overcomes.
One of the most serious disadvantages of hazardous material sampling apparatus heretofore known is the possibility that the sample contained in the sampler may escape therefrom inadvertently and inflict serious injury on the sampling personnel. This possibility is present primarily because it apparently has not been possible heretofore to provide a seal at opposite ends of a sampling tube so as to prevent the discharge of the sample from the tube in the event the tube inadvertently is shifted to some position other than vertical.
Persons taking samples very often have to clamber about on stacked tanks, drums, and the like, which offer uncertain footing at best. As a consequence the sampler often is subjected to violent movements, or is dropped, as the person holding the sampler strives to maintain his or her balance in the transfer of the sample and sampling apparatus from the sampling site to the analysis site. Apparatus constructed in accordance with the invention provides for a much greater resistance to inadvertent spillage of a sample than sampling apparatus heretofore known in use.